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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
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{{Frontpage
|author=T KingfisherSylvie Cathrall|title=ThornhedgeA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyScience Fiction|summary=''You had There are few greater joys than a right book which lives up to retake your place.'' T Kingfisher's latest novella is a lovely reimagining of a fairytale that is well known and well belovedcompelling premise. But whilst there And this is a princess trapped in a tower, sleeping under an eternal enchantment, Thornhedge is not her story. Instead, our protagonist is Toadling, who was stolen away by fairies when she was a new-born baby and secreted away to the land one of fairie where her childhood was spent being taught how to draw magic from her veins and cast spellsthem.|isbn=18033642380356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX0008517061|title=Stories 2Death in a Lonely Place|author=Richard F WalkerStig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary= This is Richard F Walker's second volume Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of short stories. There are thirteen his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in all together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and I took something from each of them. There isn't a single one that doesn't deserve relaxing life to be among the others move in with Livia or brings down the overall quality. It can be tricky does Livia move to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two to talk Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and I think they give a general flavourher daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876366071786482126|title=The TrapJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Catherine Ryan HowardElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the early hours of site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the morning. Drunken revellers spilling out bones of clubs and looking for a way to get homechild beneath a doorway. Some are lucky and manage to get one of the few taxis availableThere was no skull. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villagesWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. The woman all regret the It'taxi problems difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, particularly in the light that she is pregnant with his child as a result of 'the missing women'. For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her a long way short of her homenight they spent together some three months ago. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off Her condition will be obvious before she had the chance long, not least because Ruth is prone to beg the bus driver to let her use his. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoessudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14059571740008551324|title=A Death at the PartyThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Amy StuartNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=From It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the first page, we know that Nadine Walshother. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's party will not end wellprepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. The victim - a man - This person, he promises, is dying when we first meet him someone big and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call it will be worth the ambulance police doing what he so desperately needswants. What we don't know And what he wants is who to be transferred to an open prison to serve the man is or why Nadine prefers remainder of his sentence and to have him dieget an early parole date. INot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn'd better give you a little more background t think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that you can understand DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tania Unsworth0008405026|title=Nowhere IslandA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet GilIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. Just twelve, he is so determined She was never found and the investigation ground to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himselfhalt. He is en route to yet another fostererNow, her mother, when he jumps into an anonymous carHelena, and lets it ride him to his futureher father are dead in their bed. That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between there's something about the two directions positioning of a motorway, a place inaccessible the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusionher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Them, What looked as though it was going to be an open-and -shut case is now a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfullycomplex double murder. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this Kerrigan is one place where life convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=1804540080Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085300250571379877|title=Murder in the FamilyThe Kellerby Code|author=Cara HunterJonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteenEdward Jevons is a working-yearclass young man, obsessed with his upper-old Maura Howard came home class friends, Robert and found the body of her stepfather, Luke Ryder, in the garden of their West London homeStanza. He had an injury on the back of his head which could have happened if heRobert'd slipped down the steps but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberates a theatre director. Twenty years later, no one has been charged with his murder and itHe's now the subject of ''Infamous''also self-obsessed, demanding, a true-crime showhandsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. A group of experts Edward has been brought together to review the evidence in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to take the investigation furtherRobert. More to the point, theyMost men in Robert're going to do this live on camera, episode by episode. Theres position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's no dump of not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the whole box set - and no shortage two of cliffhangers. It's compelling viewingthem kissing in a dark passageway.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleJo Callaghan|title=The Stolen SongbirdLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Caro's mother, When a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and man is now missing. Her other motherfound crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, Ronnie, is having DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to go up North to take care of the case alongside her sister who is unwell. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gamsidekick, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worriedthe AI detective Lock. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian ladyIt's housetheir first live case together, along having previously been very successful with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there tooseveral cold cases. But she soon finds herself caught up in when there is a second body found crucified a mysteryfew days later, as she discovers Kat is suddenly struggling with a painting of potential serial killer and a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London very high profile case that draws a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising peoplelot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Is the painting somehow linked Will they be able to solve the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the mystery toocase and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn=0571363148139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291959771399613073|title=None of this is TrueMoral Injuries|author=Lisa JewellChristie Watson|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=On her 45th birthdayOlivia, Alix Summer celebrated with Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a crowd quarter of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Faira century. SheOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, too, was out celebrating her 45th birthday, only she was just with her husband, Walterwhich is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. It turns out that not only are Alix Laura is a perfectionist and Josie birthday twins, they were both born in St Mary's hospitala trauma doctor. That's where Anjali is the similarities end, though: Alix, with her husband, Nathan, are in free spirit of the midst of a joyful, monied group of friends and whilst she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're not at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don'exactlyt know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it'' rowdys their teenage children who are involved.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, theyyou're enjoying themselvesunlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. JosieA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the other hand, holds her handbag close to her tummy London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and you get the sense that Walter's not too happyhe has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He's not used also realised that most rich people expect poor people to spending be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this much money on turned into permanent employment as a meal - but it is Josie's birthday after alltrader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18033651101035021803|authortitle=Chuck TingleThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|titleauthor=Camp DamascusC L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Love is love; although humans continue It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to be confused by this sentimentthe English country village where she grew up. Gay conversion therapy is ongoing She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. The UK government ruled out plans to make it a crime Freya's former mentor andCarole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, in is dead and the UScircumstances seem suspicious, nearly 700 000 adults have received itto say the least. Although it is both a secular and a religious prejudice Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, Chuck Tingleshe feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in his new horrorbusiness together as antique hunters, ''Camp Damascus'', peels back she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the skin of Christian ''pray profession she loved. After the gay away'' camps to show split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the reader rebound from the horror lurking withinlove of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1803136383AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Tin SoldiersAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=David ChadwickBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary= Wat Tyler has returned from fighting in Vietnam under something ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of a cloudthings to come. What actually happened out there '' I've heard it said that 'technology' is gossiped about and nobody is sure exactly what took placehappens after you're eighteen. Well, but an act I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of heroism leading technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice and disgrace seems to be me but I'm left with the consensusfeeling that it's all getting away from me. Wat himself Some of it is keeping his cards close to his chest- frankly - quite frightening. Of course, as he always doesI could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0C7J9D21BSunny Singh|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J LewisHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Historical FictionThrillers |summary=When we first meet our hero, his name The Hotel Arcadia is Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallowsa luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Idyllic as this might soundHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, it's a bordello wartime photographer and Ettore's mother died when he was bornAbhi, the hotel manager. He's not been short of mothers, though - but As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for someone of his background the residents who are still alive in late-eighteenth-century Amalfithe hotel, ithe forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's difficult to obtain decent employmenthappened through her photography. The stint working with Although they only ever talk over the preparation of anchovies didn't work out phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore was nothing they both wait to see if not resourceful - and determined - and it was not long they will be rescued before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. He was even saving some moneythey are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz1529153298|title=After DeathThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=35
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is released in a bio-hazard accidentPrime Minister. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary(A woman? I mean, covered in plastichonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleaguesthough. Women have been disappearing. As he recovers his sensesWell, he realises that there is something different about him; he can they've been murdered, but to have 'feeldisappeared'doesn' everythingt sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she'Everythings overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. Michael isnWhen you't re from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She'Michaels not worried about the dangers or that her Mum'' anymores stopped talking - to anyone.|isbn=1662500467}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jamie Littler1398524085|title=ArkspireHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Two sistersCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Juniper Paul and ElodieOllie and her daughter, born fifteen minutes apartEtty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, are growing to be chalk and cheeseis not. Juniper is an eager hunter Shortly afterwards, Etty and trader in illicit magicGreg, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of find the religious districts body of ArkspireGreg's father, Duncan Ackerley, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, river. It was an easy assumption for the closest police to a ruler the district has, make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and one of then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the five major victors in said earlier warguilt. Being trained in the magic that only five people The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can use would definitely change the status of the whole familydo but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|isbn=0241586143
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Thiago de Moraes1035906708|title=Old Gods New TricksDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher Edge
|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks Lucas and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powderhis friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, she could almost be thought a young goddess place that has the nickname of nuisance'The Black Hole'. But just when sheAll big movie fans, they's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacherre looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, the world changes. many snacks! SuddenlyHowever, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just as the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phonesmovie starts, and all they very quickly realise that powers the Internetsomething about this new film format is very different, just for our convenienceand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn's sake)t even imagine. Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power But as they lurch from us. And so she begins her epic quest, one film genre to gather all the people that next, can steal it they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back – namely to the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Godscinema, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.to their real lives?|isbn=178845295X1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alexia CasaleRachel Greenlaw|title=Sing if you Can't DanceCompass and Blade|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a life-changing disability tooremote and partially forgotten island, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing survives on stage in luring ships into the rocks and plundering the middle wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of a dance performance the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that was going to change her lifelies within. But she comes back fighting, desperate when the Council Watch lays a trap to avoid end the pity stareswrecking, they capture the island's leader and desperate to get back Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a life that's wreck survivor who is as normal charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she can possibly manage. Meanwhile there's sets off in search of a new (cute!) boy family secret that lies buried deep in schoolthe sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her music A Level performance piece from the watched streets of foreign islands to try to sort out, and just the day-to-day traumas heart of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigate. So even though she cansmuggler't dance anymores territory, might she Mira must be able determined to sing stop at nothing to save the future of her way through instead?home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=05713738010008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Helen PetersJames Sherwood Metts|title=Friends and TraitorsPlanet Storyland|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=England, WW2. Two young girls are new at Things have been a bit sticky for the country pile called StanbrookEarthlings. One is NancyAI and automation have been proceeding apace, destined often replacing jobs they're paid to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her. The do and other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school tasks that has been removed there away from bomber flight-pathstook time to accomplish. The girls are chalk Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and cheesestarting to think of other, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it sonew ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. But something is amiss, Life was pretty much shut down and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings along with Germansit, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely all the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be many daily social interactions on which they depend so underhand?heavily.|isbn=17880046471736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241996104Matthew Tree|title=Coming to Find You|author=Jane CorryWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Nancy's mother Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and step-father were brutally stabbed chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at their Sussex farmhouse any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and her step-brother, Martin, has been convicted who had endless crises of their murderself confidence. We first meet Nancy outside the courtSo Tim applied himself to his studies, after Martin receives a life sentencecultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. |isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|author=A G Slatter|title=The barrister tells her that sheBriar Book of the Dead|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary='' There's received a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.'silent sentence' - she Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's not been found guilty , a family of anything but will have witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to live with what happened be born into her family for the rest of generations and as such since she was young, her lifetraining as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. Of courseWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, itEllie's made worse because Nancycousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's rich - she inherited five million pounds from leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her mother - way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the papers are making rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the most heart of ita maelstrom of chaos. ''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' is Reeling from one favourite epithet family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches''rich bitch'' might not be printed but legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is undoubtedly spokenunder threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294136801529900360|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)The Ghost Orchid|author=Martin WalkerJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=One of the main events of the Sarlat tourist season is the re-enactment of the liberation of the town from the English in 1370 and BrunoIt hadn's there to see the show with some friends. Itt been Lt Milo Sturgis's all fault that Alex Delaware had been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong when, Kerquelin, the man playing one of the main characters is seriously injured when but he departs from the scriptfelt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. Luckily, his doctor is His assertions that there were only open-and -shut cases which didn't need the man is whisked away in help of a psychologist only worked for a helicopterwhile. A local doctor (and friend of Bruno) wonders about his chances of survival but - as heFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's a senior government employeepartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man who runs Frenchelon - she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the military has stepped swimming pool of a remote property inBel Air. One daughter lives nearby He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and another, who lives in California, she is flying in with some of her fathermarried to an extremely rich man and it's friends for a pre-arranged holidaynot the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291963881529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The TrialSecret Life of a Vet|author=Rob RinderSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Grant Cliveden Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a hero: a policeman who stood for all that was good GP and honest and looked up Rowlands didn't want to by just about everyonefollow in his footsteps, so there was public uproar particularly when he was murdered in plain sight at considered the Old Bailey. Therestrain that being on-call put on his father's just one man in life. When he was seventeen he took the frame for his murder - Jimmy Knight - opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and it's not too long before Knight appears in court, charged with Cliveden's murder. Knight was told that convinced this was the best barrister job for him . Before long, he was Jonathan Taylorat Liverpool University. It hadn't -Cameron of Stag Court Chambers and it's Tayloras with so many students -Cameron and been his pupil, Adam Green, who eventually represent himdream since he was a child. Knight's determined to plead not guiltyIf anything, despite all Taylor-Cameronhe's recommendations d wanted to the contrarybe a professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Essie Fox0861541774|title=The FascinationA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary= The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the Second World War) which has often led to more than a few writers mishandling it. There's such a glut of media set in the era that the hallmarks we've come to associate with it are familiar to the point of being cliched, hackneyed even. All this is simply to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite that, something about it still grabs me – and something about this book's description did as well.
|isbn=1914585526
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{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew Cartmel
|title=Death in Fine Condition
|rating=3
|genre=Crime
|summary=Cordelia really loves classic paperback crime fiction, DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and in particular a series called Sleuth Hound. She spends her time hunting out copies that she can sell on for profitformer colleague, sometimes 'tweaking' themDanny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to add valuemeet up with an old ally, in somewhat fraudulent waysGuy Trueman. One day she discovers Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a near perfect collection of these books after seeing them in the background of man armed with a photograph on her drug dealer's living room wall, knife - and so she sets about discovering where this collection ishe killed a Ghurka. Initially, and how she can steal it! It's he faced a next-level step in her petty crime career, charge of manslaughter but has she reached too far, and what will happen when evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the owner of man. Now he could be facing the collection comes looking for their books?|isbn=1789098947death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529507987Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Repair Shop Craft Book|author=Walker Books and Sonia Albert (Illustrator)Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-General Fiction|summary=I love ''The Repair Shop''. It's my go-to programme when I want to be cheered up. After Perfect Passion Company is a hard day, there's nothing better than watching experts repair treasured items without ever mentioning what they're worth. You seedating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the value is online apps in what these possessions are worth to the people who own them and the memories they holdproviding a more personal, tailored service. No expense appears to be spared Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the experts spend as much time and effort business, as Ness is required planning to take a trip to Canada to achieve the desired resultget away for a while. Regular viewers know the experts Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and they're all brilliant so jumps at explaining what it is they're doingthe chance to come home to Edinburgh. But how did they start?}}{{Frontpage|author=Nicole Jarvis|title=A Portrait in Shadow|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=''I want all of Florence to know my name'' Cast out And so begins this new story from RomeAlexander McCall Smith, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking bringing us to an oasis in which her art can find a home Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and where her future can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from the powerful AccademiaIsabel Dalhousie novels, the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power but with some new characters who quickly begin to protect the city and its citizens from plagues and cursescharm. The all Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-male Accademia making, but Ness has hoarded power over art full confidence in her abilities, and architecture for centuries there's always her very helpful (and guard it above all else. To themrather handsome) neighbour, William, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – has no place amongst them and their society.to lend a hand…|isbn=18033623401846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH0811771741|title=The Grave ListenersInstaKnits for Baby|author=William FrankMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrafts|summary=The village is isolated and poor. ItMelissa Leapman's surrounded by ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a Witching Forestcollection of knits from toys to blankets. And Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicinesfire' variety. The black wood of projects are divided by the forest provides heat and warmthtime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, roofs on homesfive to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and even gallows, if neededmore than twenty hours. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in All the village projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated's me being picky.
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|isbnauthor=024162343XDean Koontz|title=Stolen History|author=Sathnam SangheraThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionParanormal|summary=I was the Benny is having a terrifically bad company other people got into at schoolday. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessonsHe loses his job, he loses his fiancee, it was probably worse stilland his house gets trashed. Not too long after the end of WWIIOh, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failuressomeone has delivered a really weird, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came disturbing coffin-sized object to be called his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the colonies' as want to dispute what right thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the army had very last person to be there in the first placedeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret So fortunately for Benny it turns out that I lacked the maturity delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to approach 'the problem' politelyhelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. I wish ISpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny'd had Sathnam Sangheras enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's ''Stolen History''wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Amanda CraigAdam Stower|title=Three GracesMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers |summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and capture it, crafting an image well, whatever takes his fancy next of the country as it stands in one particular momenttwo. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she But he's a bad magician's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She cat, so his favourite bun has such been turned into a gift for weaving hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the ongoing issues of catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the day regular back garden, but into the lives a world of her characters in frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a way that feels natural and lived-inViking land, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised peoplewhere a troll hunter is expected – well, grappling with issues far larger one much bigger than themselves.Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn= 140871468X0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1448309379B0C47LV1PC|title=Flesh and Blood (DS McAvoy 11)Fragility|author=David MarkMosby Woods|rating=3.54|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=It's something of Can you make a surprise to find that you're dead, particularly when you're thinking that youYo birthing person're actually on a break with your wife and children, but that's what happened to DS Aector McAvoy. Whilst he was relieved to find that he was stilljoke? And if you could, officially, aliveis the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it was difficult land? The catch is that the answer for Detective Superintendent Trish Pharoahboth could well be... Her protegee - McAvoy - was still alive but . no. ''Fragility'' is set as the partially clad man who'd dashed city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from her flat in the early hours of restrictions imposed during the morning when it was obvious that someone was tampering with her car, was not. Thor Ingolfsson was Aector McAvoy's doppelganger - and not everyone who commented on this was doing so kindly. It had always been suspected that Pharoah was sweet on Aector.covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=09571811671529431735|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian LewisWinter Visitor|author=Alan MarshallJames Henry|rating=54|genre=ArtCrime|summary=There are few positive things It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which can be said about made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time, in trying to avoid looking at wanted drug smuggler for a problem I found myself looking more closely at decade. The return has come about because he's had a couple of pictures on the walls letter from his ex- wife, saying that she's ill and was completely taken by the work of Brian Lewishasn't long to live. I searched online It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and could only find ‘used’ versions sent to a watery grave in the boot of this book and the print I wanted was ‘not available’a stolen Ford Sierra. Oh, dear - then Is it a few doors down warning from the apartment, I found a gift shop with Spanish gang or a stack of brand new books - and a framed print of the picture I wanted.problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Simon FoxAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=DeadlockThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Late one night Graham Blake Eli is late back from his shift on a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the forcewondrous library we start by visiting with him, and then suddenly rings Archiein the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, demanding he fetch something from too – for there is a secret place, and join him on generation missing in the runfamily. They get togetherA few short years ago, but barely begin Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to smell navigate the world in the whiff company of Southern trains a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express eatery leads to Brightona confession from gran, toting a tin Eli knows his father was determined only hope is to keep away from his colleaguesdare to enter what he most hates, and with the sole aim the bearer prize of a whole heap of questionsmagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=18399444200571382231
}}

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